From the new (and rather good) Four Groups Blog: Costs and Quality. Bruce Lewin spotted this on the mailing list of UK-HRD.

Nothing personal - this happens every couple of days - someone puts up a posting asking for an instrument, exercise, whatever, which will presumably have some kind of effect on people’s careers and life chances and then adds the coda that it should preferably be free or low-cost.

I’m reminded of John Glenn, the astronaut, who when asked about his feelings on being punted into outer space said that he couldn’t help but think that all the millions of components were purchased from the lowest bidder.